With Fab Five banners gone, Michigan takes aim at new ones

Mar. 19, 2013
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Michigan guard Tim Hardaway Jr. pulls down a rebound between teammates Glenn Robinson III (1) and Jordan Morgan (52) against the Wisconsin Badgers in the first half during the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament at the United Center. / Jerry Lai, USA TODAY Sports

by Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports

by Nicole Auerbach, USA TODAY Sports

Michigan basketball coach John Beilein makes it a point to offer coffee to guests so he can demonstrate how it works, and he likes to talk X's and O's while the coffee brews. Beilein's assistants do the same thing. They all want to show every person who walks into their new practice facility - everything: the gym, the state-of-the-art weight room, the locker room, their offices, the meeting rooms and more.

The coffeemaker is just the beginning.

Michigan's basketball player development center is unlike anything it had before; that's mostly because it didn't have anything similar before. Teams practiced in Crisler Arena, and, when that was being renovated the past few years, players practiced at the intramural building on campus.

Now, they have pristine facilities for practices and games, which cost more than $75 million in sum and form essentially a brand-new basketball complex. Coaches hope and expect that it will help recruiting, as will success sustained over the past couple of seasons. The Wolverines spent most of this season in the national spotlight, ranked in the top 10 of the national polls.

But how did this happen - how did Beilein take a program that hadn't been to the NCAA tournament for 11 years and get there four of the past five? How did Michigan end up with a national player of the year candidate and a group of highly touted freshmen drawing comparisons to the Fab Five?

There is no one simple answer.

"To build a program that's going to be nationally competitive, it takes a combination of investments and resources, and it took us awhile at Michigan to kind of get the pieces put together," Michigan athletics director Dave Brandon said. The first piece, Brandon said, was getting Beilein, a "great head coach with a great reputation who does things the right way.

"John came into a situation where we had a program that was serving out penalties from significant NCAA violations, non-competitive facilities, and we had three coaches in a row who had left in less than favorable circumstances," Brandon said. "We were not getting our fair share of the recruits that we needed to be successful."

Three years ago, Beilein added LaVall Jordan and Bacari Alexander to his staff, which already included Jeff Meyer. That was the next step - getting the right assistants to work with the players and recruit future ones.

Recruiting success and improved facilities came next, nearly hand-in-hand. Brandon said the facilities used to be "very old" and "antiquated," nowhere near the kind of resources elite programs had elsewhere. But plans got approved by the university's board of regents, and construction began. Coaches could show prospective players such as Glenn Robinson III and Mitch McGary what the player development center would look like, how cool their lockers would be. The current freshman class, highlighted by Robinson and McGary, was Beilein's highest-ranked recruiting class ever. And they play in front of bigger, more raucous crowds than years past in a facility among the nation's nicest.

"Once you get all that put together, you start to see a competitiveness on the floor that, frankly, we didn't have in recent years," Brandon said.

None of those things were written down as particular program goals, but each is an accomplishment nonetheless.

"I take it day in, day out," Beilein said. "I think that's how you get to this point. I don't think we had any specific goals, like sell the place out in year five or something like that. I think it's all sort of come together at the same time because of the new facilities. Because as we got to learn the Big Ten, we got to learn the footprint of the recruiting in the Big Ten. We became not exponentially better but gradually better every year.

"If you look at everything - our practice habits, our culture, our facilities - every day has been a step in the right direction. It's also happening at a time when the Big Ten has never been stronger."

For the first time in two decades, Michigan is in the discussion of the nation's elite teams. The Wolverines won a share of the Big Ten regular-season title last season, and they came within a basket of another this year. They're a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, and they'll face South Dakota State on Thursday night.

"In my mind, it's like it should be," said Jordan, who grew up in Albion, Mich. "I was 10 in 1989 when Michigan won (the national title). Watching the successful teams thereafter, in my mind it's like it should be. I think in everybody's mind it's like it should be - where Michigan is mentioned with other contenders.

"For me, it's humbling and cool to be a part of something I grew up watching. It makes me want to work as hard to get to this level and keep it. Sustainability. We're not there yet, but it's good to be in the conversation. That's where we should be."

Fab Five member and current ESPN analyst Jalen Rose said sustainability can be achieved in a few ways. The first is stability in the coaching staff. Then stability in recruiting.

"(Beilein) is going to be a key to what happens with the program moving forward - not only progress on the floor but showing that the program is viable, it's more than just wins and losses," Rose said. "This is how you watch for a dropoff or not, and hopefully we don't experience it. It's based on two things: The ability to continue to recruit top-flight players, i.e., McDonald's All-Americans â?¦ (and when guys leave to go pro) you've got to make sure you're able to replace them."

Rose said he believes Michigan must get better at recruiting the state of Michigan. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo does that, and all his great teams over the years have featured Michigan-bred players. Keith Appling and Derrick Nix are Detroit guys. "You've got to be able to recruit Michigan," Rose said. "That's going to be a key for the program moving forward."

Part of the future, too, involves the past, Rose believes. He's been vocal over the years, speaking out against the way Michigan has chosen to erase the memory of his teams. In 2002, then-new university President Mary Sue Coleman ordered the removal of banners representing two Final Four appearances from the rafters of Crisler Arena as part of the school's self-imposed sanctions, which followed a scandal involving former booster Ed Martin and star player Chris Webber.

The school was forced to disassociate with Webber for 10 years, a period that ends in May. The banners have not gone back up, and Coleman said last year she doesn't think they ever will. Coleman declined an interview request for this story.

Rose hopes that someday he'll see those banners back up. He sees ties between the Fab Five and the current team.

"If you don't want to put the banners back up, that's fine," Rose said. "I think they could put a black banner up with maize and blue around it and the Fab Five numbers on it, and say whatever they want to say and be done with it. But if they are going to wait for Chris to apologize to acknowledge what the coaches and the players and fans really want to see, I think they're doing a disservice to the whole situation.

"I walk outside right now, I get hit by a bus and now everybody wants to honor me and the Fab Five. That's how these situations work. I don't want to have to go to some tragedy or a funeral, and then, 'Oh my God, we really loved and appreciated them so much.' "

Brandon, who took over the athletic department in 2010, said he has "good" relationships with a majority of the Fab Five members. He said he has not met Webber, but he "looks forward to doing that one of these days."

"I believe the more time that passes, the more we all remember the positive things about those teams, the Fab Five," Brandon said. "There were more than five guys on those teams, and those guys accomplished some very important things that really changed the direction of basketball at the University of Michigan. I give them all the credit in the world - all of them.

"My general view is what Michigan basketball is about is the guys who are wearing the uniforms who are in the middle of a really terrific and exciting season. I would love for the focus to be on the coaches and players who are out representing us today. â?¦ We can worry about some of the history around the Fab Five later on when it's an appropriate time to do that."

In the meantime, the Wolverines can aim to add a new banner of their own this spring.